Abstract: I tell ya’ sometimes I feel like Backlog Refinement just don’t get no respect!
Ever been in a Sprint Planning session when the team doesn’t have enough understanding of the product backlog items (PBIs) to effectively plan the Sprint?
Does your team feel like they don’t have time to "waste" elaborating PBIs, learning about Acceptance Criteria, or collaboratively estimating as a team?
Has someone mandated it’s “too expensive” or “inefficient” to bring the whole team together regularly or that just one or two “leads” can should review and estimate PBIs for the entire team?
These misconceptions and related anti-patterns are far too common when new teams begin transitioning to Agile/Scrum.
Backlog Refinement may be the 2nd most important activity (after the Retrospective) for enabling team improvement. But too often, new Scrum teams neglect it only to find themselves struggling to establish predictability, sustainable pace, stakeholder engagement or collective ownership. The most common indicators of this neglect emerge in painful and ineffective Sprint Planning, as well as a repeated “undone work” pattern at the end of the Sprints.
We can avoid this by emphasizing the value of “Collaborative Discovery” over just "reviewing the Backlog".
Join this session to learn common sense practices and techniques to help optimize the emergence of requirements, and why it’s the conversation that matters, making Backlog Refinement a must-do, indispensable team learning activity.
Learning Outcomes: - Attendees will learn to leverage Backlog Refinement as the container for:
- collaborative discovery
- lightweight design and visualization
- good Story writing
- clear, demonstrable Acceptance Criteria
- effective and collaborative elaboration and decomposition
- vertical slicing
- relative estimation
- just-in-time planning
- Attendee Call to Action - "What can you take back to your teams to help them improve?"
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